Tuesdays with Dorie: Sweet Cream Biscuits

If I’ve learned anything from this week’s TWD, it’s that I make lousy biscuits. Well, let me clear that up…these Sweet Cream Biscuits (chosen by Melissa of Love At First Bite for TWD) tasted good, especially topped with some homemade strawberry-vanilla bean smoosh, but they were not the high, flaky biscuits of my dreams. Overworking must have been the culprit, although after seven years of baking professionally, I like to think that I know when to stop.

But I won’t let you get me down, biscuits. No, no…I will master you yet. You just wait and see.

I couldn’t get mine to rise much to save my life. I made 3 batches and on the third one I barely handled the dough – worrying that I didn’t handle it enough. Oh well, maybe it’s the recipe. Thanks for baking with me this week!

With all the problems folks are having with biscuits not rising, I’m wondering if baking powder might be the culprit. I remember reading that baking powder does not keep and you should toss it after 6 months. I’ve started writing a date on my can of baking powder when I open it.

I think yours look great. I loved these and wonder if mine would seem heavy and flat to other people? I work them very little, just quickly pat them into shape rather than bother with a rolling pin, and then get them right in the oven.

They may not be sky high, but your biscuit is making my mouth water something fierce.
Isn’t it funny how even when you bake for a living, some things never turn out right for you? Whenever I make sugar cookies at home, I find them highly disappointing. For some reason they just aren’t something I seem capable of making well in my own kitchen. Oh well.

This looks all very english-ey… lol doesn’t look at all like you didn’t master them. But I do understand the biscuits of your dreams! I’m far from being a pro… and all I do now is not to work them at all! LOL

So I know I’m really late to this conversation but I hadn’t been to your site in a while and was catching up (I love it by the way!). I love this recipe but it took some work. I’ve found that cutting the bisucits extra thick (I normally double the batch), adding a little extra baking powder, and letting them sit and rise for 30 minutes (I also always brush them with heavy cream and sift powdered sugar over them) before baking — it’s made all the difference for me. They end up rising beautifully! It took a couple tries but these have become my favorite, go-to biscuit recipe.

I just made these for the fifth time and I was soooo careful not to overwork or over-roll. They still didn’t rise so here I am googleing “cream biscuit didn’t rise.” Thank goodness I found you! I might just try your tip tomorrow – I’m dying to make this work! Thank you!

thanks…the smoosh was totally something i made up to save some berries that would have been bound for the trashcan a day later. i just cut them in quarters, added a little sugar (to taste), seeds of half a vanilla bean and a squirt of lemon juice. put that in a pot and heated it until it bubbled and the sugar looked dissolved. it was much looser than a jam…more like a sauce…because i didn’t add too much sugar or really cook it down for a long period.